Oil and water discovery bottles

This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post at no cost to you.

Recently we created some sparkly wax gems as a science activity inspired by the popular lava lamp experiment. We have not actually made a ‘lava lamp’ but there is a great version of it here at Racheous Lovable Learning. This is a different activity inspired by that same experiment, and is very quick, easy and interesting for kids. My girls both adored making these.

To make oil and water discovery bottles you will need:

• a bottle – ours are glass but for younger children plastic would be a better choice for obvious reasons
• a funnel
• oil – any type will do, we used rice bran oil because we have a large 4L bottle of it in the cupboard
• food colouring and an eye dropper if it doesn’t already have one on the bottle top

How to make them:

The girls (aged 5 aqnd 6) made their own bottles. We used a jug for pouring to make it easier to manage for them. First fill a bottle half full with water using a funnel to prevent mess. Then fill the other half of the bottle up with oil.

Next add a few drops of food colouring and watch them drift down slowly through the oil. The oil is thicker than water and as we know, they don’t mix. The oil floats on top of the water, and the food colouring won’t mix with the oil. Once the food colouring drops hit the base of the oil, they slip into the water in pretty trails, before diluting and changing the colour of the water. The girls loved watching this happen.

Miss R was hoping to create her bottle in layers, but it didn’t really work that way. The water she added on top of the oil ended up on the bottom with the rest of the water pretty quickly.

Screw the lids on tightly and shake! The oil and water mix with lots of bubbles, then slowly separate again. It’s quite mesmerising to watch and the girls were very fascinated by shaking them, watching them separate, and then shaking them again. I have taken a few pictures at different stages of the shaking and separating…

Christmas paper crafting

Visit our shop

What’s Popular

I’m basically a big kid who never grew up and still loves to muck around with paint, glitter, glue and toilet rolls. With the crafts shared here on this website I’m hoping to give other parents and carers inspiration to get crafty with their kids at home – make our projects, or use them as a source of inspiration to spark ideas of your own. When it comes to crafting no rules apply!